Heat-Induced Panic Attack

It's 3 o'clock in the morning, and I've probably had a little less than 2 hours of sleep. Why? Because it's bloody hot and I've made a series of unfortunate decisions this summer.

You see, so far this summer, even though we've had a number of days where the temperature went over 90 degrees, the humidity was low and at night it cooled off into the 50s or low 60s. Between open windows and fans, the house would cool off overnight, sleeping ended up not being too difficult, and in the morning I closed up curtains to keep the sun out and the cool air in. It was all working fine and the house never got overwhelmingly hot.

Because of this, it has not been absolutely necessary to use an air conditioner so far this year. And, because installing the air conditioner in the bedroom window (and putting it away in the fall) is an ordeal I'd rather avoid if possible, and because putting it in would mean not being able to use regular fans on the nights when we didn't need the a/c, AND because those nights where we didn't need a/c FAR outweighed the nights it would have been nice AND because I was attempting to encourage my body to adapt itself to the weather instead of resorting to a/c AND because this had been working so far, both air conditioners are still stored away.

You also have to keep in mind that we're approaching 2 dozen nighttime break-in robberies over the past 2-3 weeks, which led us to start pulling the curtains closed at night, which means the cooler night air wasn't getting in very well downstairs even when there WAS cooler night air.

So when it got hot Wednesday, didn't cool down enough Wednesday night, got even hotter yesterday, and was either 84 with a heat index of 89 (National Weather Service) or 82 with a heat index of 88 (Weather Channel) at 1 o'clock int the morning, our house got too damn hot. According to the thermostat for the heater, it is 84 degrees where I am downstairs, which means it is warmer than that on the second floor where our bedroom is.

As you might rightly assume, when I went to bed a few hours ago, it was uncomfortably warm in the bedroom. But since I sleep au naturel, and since I ended up getting up to get the second window fan to help pull cooler air in from both bedroom windows, and since that meant we had a total of 3 fans blowing on us in the bedroom, I assumed that once I had stilled myself and allowed my body to readjust itself, I would do okay. I was sweating a bit and I hate sweating, but I focused on the fact that this was giving the fans something to evaporate and helping to cool me off and eventually I managed to fall asleep.

I know that concerns about being too hot were factoring into my dreams, but right in the middle of dreaming something completely unrelated, I became conscious of feeling extremely overheated. I instantly woke up in a panic --I felt physically stifled and my skin felt hotter than it did when I came home after work when it was about 100 degrees outside. I was sitting up before I was even fully conscious, and my heart was racing and pounding even more than it usually does these days. I was trying to stop hyperventilating. I seemed to have stopped sweating and started wishing I would. In my panic I decided that I had to get the futon mattress from one of the extra bedrooms and drag it downstairs where it would be cooler. It wasn't until I got to the bottom of the stairs that I realized it wasn't noticeably cooler down here anymore.

I opened the front door to the enclosed porch, but that and the partially opened curtains meant that I had to keep my nightgown on now. I was also becoming excessively worried that someone was going to break in anyway, except that instead of me being blissfully unaware and asleep upstairs, I was going to be right there, all by myself, possibly without clothes on because I wasn't sure how much longer I could tolerate having any cloth touching my skin. So I sat there on the edge of the futon on the floor of the library, about to cry, starting to hyperventilate again, and posting my panic on Facebook.

I was also really worried about the cats. Gytha had tried laying near me in bed before I went to sleep, and her sides were heaving so fast I became very concerned about their safety. You would think that if they were overheated they would have sprawled on one of the windowsills downstairs. But they tend to follow me and they were trying to find cool places upstairs to do their sprawling. I was hoping that if I came downstairs where it was cooler it would also be better for them since they would follow me. Of course, we've already covered the lack of cooler-ness downstairs, and they don't actually seem to be showing any signs that they are suffering. Which I'm trying to focus on, because it's going to get even hotter today (Friday) and the house is going to get that much hotter.

So anyway, I drank the rest of the Gatorade I'd started earlier in the evening and had a good cry. In a renewal of panic, I went around throwing open all the windows and curtains down here, and suddenly realized I no longer cared about the stupid burglars. And I started to relax. I was finally able to lay down on the futon and rest for a bit. Except then I started getting this tight, uncomfortable tension that I get in the middle of my shoulders right below my neck. If I keep trying, I can sometimes pop and stretch my shoulders enough to get it to go away. But it made lying there on the futon uncomfortable, so I gave up.

I debated what to do for the remaining hours. If the futon wasn't on top of my puzzle, I'd have done that. Instead I decided to write this out, and I've been at it for about 2 hours. (Which is one of the reasons I don't write more often. I do about 1000 edits during and after writing, and it takes forever!) But in those hours it has cooled off a little bit and I'm feeling relaxed, although I'm starting to get tired again as well. At this point, I'm almost afraid to try to go to sleep again. If I do, waking up in an hour will be painful.

At least I know that this won't happen again. What I really wanted was one of those upright, rolling air conditioners for the bedroom. Then we could use it when we needed it and the windows would still be free for us to open and close as needed. One of my friends at work has one he doesn't need anymore, so I was going to buy it from him. Every time they predicted temps in the 90s I wondered if I should try to arrange to get it from him, but I kept putting it off. Today I realized it was urgent and asked him about it, but for a couple of reasons what we decided was that I would stop by his house and pick it up after work tomorrow/Friday/today. So once I make it through the rest of this night, I won't have to worry about the whole air conditioning ordeal and not being able to sleep anymore. And we might get one or two nights of use before the temps drop back down again, since the predicted high for Sunday is only 78/81 at this point, and the night temps are supposed to get back down into the low 60s by Saturday night.

For as stubborn as I am, for as much of a fighter as I've always been, for as tenacious as I can be, and as resilient as I used to be, it's times like this that make me feel like I've become a total puss. When you consider the hardships our ancestors faced and survived and what people all over the world endure every day, I keep wondering how I would fare if I ever had to face something truly hard. Neither Tim or I have had to fight any life-threatening diseases. My parents don't have dementia or require care at this point. I've never been a victim of any sort of crime. I've never actually suffered due to discrimination. I've never suffered any sort of real personal tragedy. And yet I usually feel like the world is pressing me down and suffocating me, that all the joy has been squeezed out of my life except for tiny bits that leak in. And most of the time when I am happy it is because I'm managing to avoid thinking about or dealing with things that will make me unhappy.

I can't appreciate the fact that I have it really good because all I can see is what isn't good, and I can't figure out how to reverse it. It's like walking around with your eyes closed and constantly complaining about being blind. You have this idea that if you just opened your eyes you wouldn't be blind anymore, but you can't remember how to open your eyes, and so it just makes you complain even more about not being able to remember how to do what you ought to be able to do and what most other people seem to be able to do. You feel guilty because there are other people out there who are truly blind and don't have the choice to just open their eyes, but that still doesn't help you figure out how to fix your own problem.

And in the meantime, I become more anxious about it every day. More guilty. Even when I was unhappy in my younger years, I didn't have panic attacks. Now it's not uncommon for me to have to struggle to just function like a normal person, and panic attacks are an increasingly common part of the picture. Did you know you can hide them, and have them on the inside without anyone knowing, even when you are at work? It's true! Maybe I'm talented after all. HAHAHAHAHA. Yeah, I've circled back out of the depressiony bit and the lack of sleep is apparently kicking in and making me punchy. I'm gonna go try to do something constructive for the remaining hour or so before I have to start getting ready for work. Boy, I hope I don't crash part way through work today. I wonder how many coffees I can carry in to work at one time without dropping them?

One Evening of Peace in my Heart

It is so absolutely, perfectly, blissfully beautiful outside that I had no choice but to come out. I am indeed writing this as I sit in the yard, watching all the birds who don't mind my presence as they come to the feeders and feeling the cool early evening air as the sun plays peekaboo behind the clouds.

I really really wanted to write tonight, especially after the last couple of days. I have had so much on my mind during the day, so many things bothering me, so much unhappiness while I am at work, so many times I've just wanted to cry. But now that I am home, I can't bear to waste the calm and contentment I have for this evening by dredging all that back up and dwelling on it. I'd rather work on my garden plans for next year, watch the chickadees flitting about, listen to the woodpeckers and nuthatches, watch the bees sampling the cucumber flowers, even just admire my lovely lettuces which have gone to seed and are quite lovely garden plants in their own right. This is the balm I needed, and I'm not going to ignore this gift.